The transformation of God as it develops in late-Victorian British literature comprehends a simultaneous double movement: first, it seeks to demonstrate and to discredit the transcendence of God assumed by pre-romantics, a transcendence that Hillis Miller has argued reaches its culmination in the Victorian period; simultaneously, it embraces an immanence which, though dependent on the dynamics of the romantic movement, moves significantly beyond romantic limitations. This immanence, a force deep within nature and within individual and collective humanity, manifests itself in post-Darwinian dynamics such as Darwin's "struggle for life" and Nietzsche's "will to power." Because these post-Darwinian energies share with the romantics a structure analogous to the idealist Absolute, and because their biological base enables them, unlike the romantics, reliably to unite the physical, emotional, and volitional with the epistemological, they successfully rejoin in a quasi-monistic whole what Descartes had sundered. George Eliot models her rebellion against the father on her prior rejection of the Christian God she initially reveres but eventually finds inadequate, and this rebellion ramifies from her personal writings to inform the text of Middlemarch. Thomas Hardy, who seeks in both religion and the secular society a post-Darwinian alternative to the transcendence of supernaturalism on the one hand and the abyss of atheism on the other, details his objections to what Angel Clare calls an "untenable redemptive theolatry" throughout Tess of the d'Urber-villes. For Henry James, religion correlates psychologically to the intertial drag of his father's influence; yet the Jamesian urge to "live all you can" impels his novelistic career and contributes to the success of Maggie Verver, who in The Golden Bowl uses post-Darwinian dynamics to overcome textual transcendences and reunite, through both passion and perception, the components splintered by Cartesian rationalism.

Based on research primarily conducted in a molecular biology laboratory working on the Human Genome Project (HGP), this dissertation focuses-upon how genomic research, as an emerging form of scientific knowledge, stands to affect the fashioning of subjectivity. This study argues that as a biomedical project which claims to be capable of understanding "what it means to be human," the HGP stands to have profound consequences upon the way in which modern subjects know themselves. The life sciences have increasingly moved away from the mastery of nature towards knowledge and control over human nature. The HGP represents an emerging model in which human nature and life have become objects and categories of knowledge and control for the life sciences. The focus of this project is the investigation of how the HGP incorporates an understanding of human nature and life into its realm of study and how that knowledge in turn is incorporated into the understanding human beings have of themselves. This research centers upon the HGP as the site in which to draw out, counterpose and resolve some of the issues at stake in the scientific remaking of human subjects. The HGP represents an expansion of the domain of the life sciences into the control of life itself and the psychological as well as material expression of that life in human beings, known as human nature. Finally, this study characterizes the HGP as a biomedical research project that is essentially religious in how it perceives itself and claims to provide ultimate knowledge on being human. This project argues that such knowledge is religious and therefore inaccessible through modern science. Therefore it questions the ability of the HGP to provide valid knowledge on the ultimate understanding of human beings through religious, philosophical and scientific discourses that contest and subvert this claim.

Concerned with the survival of Christianity in the Middle-East, Rene Habachi engages a dialogue between thinking and life. Half a century ahead of his time, Habachi puts forward a proposal for peaceful coexistence---something which today's diplomacy is still struggling to sketch out. In a Mediterranean where traditions abound, nationalities vary, cultures overlap and civilisations succeed one another, Habachi opts for a philosophy anchored in the present, having recourse to traditions of the past, so as to prepare a better future. Respectful of the three monotheistic religions in the Middle-East and cognizant of the practical difficulty in managing a peaceful coexistence, Habachi calls for dialogue between the three religions, while assigning to each a specific task: for Judaism, the task of hospitality; for Islam, the task of tolerance; and for Christianity, the task of gratuitousness. Habachi remains convinced that only healthy and equitable economy is the basis for solidarity.

<p> This dissertation circles around the creation of an arts-based film script entitled "Behind Locked Doors." With a story that is located within a fictional psychiatric hospital, the text includes a number of characters whose psychic wounds allow for a depth psychological exploration into a variety of agitating symptoms: sexual trauma, bereavement, psychosis, grandiosity, narcissism, and multiple personality disorder, among others. The core theme underlying the creative work is that of imagination, especially how it reveals and expresses itself along a twisting ambivalent line between healing and disintegration. Viewing the imaginative function from diverse standpoints as embodied in each character's personality, the dissertation examines how traditional Western pharmaceutical and re-adjustment therapies stack up against more soul-oriented healing methodologies, including Jung's individuation process, Hillman's archetypal psychologizing, Sufi imaginal traditions, and creative play therapies. The literature review and methodology chapters survey the imaginal landscape from hermeneutic, phenomenological, active imagining, carnivalesque, narrative storytelling and arts based traditions, amongst others. Scientific and theological concepts, especially those that incorporate an abundance of imagination, such as cosmological physics and Dante's divine poetic crossing of life and death thresholds, are also explored. The concluding chapter reflects upon similarities between the alchemical process of psychic expansion as revealed in the Rosarium pictures and the film scriptwriting process of discovering transformational images through a long-term steady practice of active imagination. A brief review of popular films that address psychiatric hospital themes and issues rounds off the dissertation.</p>

Part One examines the general structure of Kant's System. Chapter I argues that his System cannot be fully understood without appreciating its radically theological orientation. Chapter II introduces the 'principle of perspective', and defines perspective as the 'context of or 'way of considering' a philosophical question and standpoint as the subject-matter which is under consideration. Chapter III suggests that a fixed, architectonic pattern gives Kant's System its 'Gopernican' character. Part Two investigates the epistemological underpinnings of Kant's System. Chapter IV defines his four main perspectives (the transcendental, empirical, logical, and practical) as dealing with the synthetic a priori, the synthetic a posteriori, the analytic a priori, and the analytic a posteriori, respectively. Chapter V applies this perspectival framework to Kant's six primary 'object-terms': 'thing in itself, 'transcendental object', and 'appearance' denote the object as viewed from the transcendental perspective; 'phenomenon', 'negative noumenon', and 'positive noumenon' denote the object as viewed from the empirical perspective. Chapter VT argues that faith in the thing in itself is the necessary starting point for Kant's System. Part Three uses the formal principles established in Parts One and Two to interpret the Critical System itself. Chapters VII-IX regard the three Critiques as systems based, respectively, on theoretical, practical, and empirical standpoints. Part Four discusses the theological implications of Kant's System. Chapter X portrays his theology as he himself regarded it: as a theism which urges a right respect for God by denying the possibility of human knowledge of His existence, yet allows for an adequately certain belief through moral and teleological arguments. Chapter XI interprets Kant's philosophy of religion as an experiment designed to prove that Christianity can serve as the universal religion of mankind. Chapter XII demonstrates Kant's deep concern for religious experience, and argues that the Critical System as a whole was intended to pave the way for a Critical mysticism.

<p> The purpose of this research was to develop the components of a theory for retention of young people after their high school years by examining the factors that contribute to continued spiritual vitality in Assemblies of God (AG) post-high school young adults. Data was collected from a stratified sample of ninety-five young adults in the United States during their senior year of high school in 2011 and two years later in 2013. In line with research by the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI), continued spiritual vitality was operationalized by using the Religious Behavior Scale, the Religious Identity Scale, and the Risk Behavior Scale. The results identified nine elements from spiritual formation factors, social considerations, and high school youth group experiences that produced fourteen statistically significant correlations with higher levels of retention and spiritual vitality in the sample two years after leaving school. This research appears to suggest that it is the aggregated effect of intentional youth group experiences providing opportunity for the internalized guidance of the Holy Spirit, recognized as God's work, and not specific youth group programs or religious activities that have the potential to create a unique spiritual journey that would ensure spiritual vitality for the youth after they leave high school.</p>

<p> To say that the masculinities are woven into the fabric of a pre-existing culture is not enough. One must go further and explore how culture itself is constituted by, or more precisely, constituted through the masculinities. As William Doty notes in his <i>Myths of Masculinity</i> (1993), culture not only produces but also is produced by stories. Ancient legends and sagas, like myths, are, to a large degree, perpetuated by the modern male dancer and athlete. However, as contemporary iterations of the masculinities, male athletes and dancers have evolved beyond the scope of myths and into new cultural forms. Their emergent story threads through this dissertation. </p><p> The masculinities represent a diverse array of possibilities and pluralities. What, then, holds them together as a coherent cultural force? This dissertation is, in large part, devoted to answering that question by way of a perspicuous inquiry conducted into a) the binarisms of gender, such as hetero-normativity and homophobia, b) the existential and archetypal nature of being, c) Cartesian mind-body dualities, and d) paradigms and practices of male athletes and dancers themselves. </p><p> In his <i>The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</i> (1962), Thomas Kuhn used "paradigm" to explain historical shifts in the practice of the hard sciences. Subsequently, Michel Foucault, in <i>The Order of Things</i> (1966), appropriated the word in a hermeneutical analysis of the human sciences. It is his unique exegesis of the history of knowledge that is used to track the historical arc of the masculinities. </p><p> This dissertation ultimately moves beyond the perspectives of Kuhn and Foucault to the work of feminist Judith Butler. In <i>Bodies That Matter </i> (1993), Butler maintains that one's gender is a cultural construct and that the process of gendering, though performative, is largely unconscious. If gender and sex are mere social constructs, where does that leave the nascent <i> logos</i> of an athlete or dancer's body? A counter-argument is made that in order to be coherent, the masculinities must possess, at minimum, a mindful body in addition to an embodied mind. </p><p> Keywords: Masculinities; Dancer; Athlete; Body; Discipline; Gender; Hero; Archetype; <i>Dasein.</i></p>

<p> The movie Dogville (2003) provides viewers with a rare and provocative twist on differences between on the one hand the rigorous, Old Testament Jehovah, characterized by rules, and by rewards or punishments in this life, and on the other hand the loving, forgiving Christ and God of the New Testament and later Christianity who are characterized by forgiveness, and by rewards or punishments in an eternal afterlife. The movie, especially its ending, challenges the forgiving nature of the New Testament God and Christ, and makes a case that the Old Testament, rigorous Jehovah is more appropriate, at least for humans who respect themselves as responsible grown-ups. Earlier than these two views of God and man, and still alive and kicking, is a third view, the "Heroic." God is irrelevant here, either as a source of rules or as a source of forgiveness and redemption. Rather, man generates his own meaning by accepting his fate and struggling to do the best he can; this life is all there is and the struggle, i.e. living it is the only meaning. The three views can be seen on a continuum with the Heroic on one end and the forgiving Christ on the other, and the rigorous Jehovah in between and closer to the heroic than to the forgiving. The Dogville point of view, preferring a rigorous God to a forgiving one, is very rarely found in literature (the Grand Inquisitor episode in The Brothers Karamazov is similar to some extent) but both the Heroic and the forgiving Christian views appear everywhere, in all kinds of non-fiction, and either explicitly or as metaphors or parables in fiction. The Heroic view is taken here to include not only classic Greek and Roman heroic writings (e..g. those of Homer and Virgil) but also more modern schools of thought including Nietzsche, the existentialists, and other "God is dead" points of view. The paucity of the first view in literature is mirrored by the small number of its followers: all self-identifying Jews are less than 0.5% of the world's population and the orthodox are a minority within that. In stark contrast, about one-third of individuals world-wide self-identify as Christian. Followers of the Heroic view, roughly measured by self-identifying atheists and perhaps including agnostics, are between 15 and 20 percent of the population of the USA. Focusing on the United States, the data show that the number of adherents of each of the two extremes of an expanded continuum, i.e. the Heroic view on one hand and the born-again Protestant version of the forgiving view on the other, has been growing while the numbers of followers of everything in the middle, i.e. Judaism (excluding its New Age, non-religious variants), Roman Catholicism, and mainstream Protestantism have been declining. The waxing and waning of these different views are evaluated in the lights of literature, philosophy, psychology, marketing, and the idea that ideas ("memes" as coined, described and popularized by Richard Dawkins) evolve, endure or disappear according to the Darwinian principle of natural selection. The conclusion is that there are important, long-term reasons for the observed trend, and that therefore both born-again Protestantism and atheism are likely to continue to take market share from their competitors in the middle.</p>

<p> This research investigates <i>anusmr&dotbelow;ti</i> (Sanskrit), <i>rjes su dran pa</i> (Tibetan), anussati (P&amacr;li), and considers how this term might serve as a link for finding a commonality in practices in H&imacr;nay&amacr;na, Mah&amacr;y&amacr;na and Vajray&amacr;na traditions. The research was inspired by the work of Buddhist scholars Janet Gyatso, Paul Harrison, and Matthew Kapstein. Each of them has noted the importance of the term anusmr&dotbelow;ti in Buddhist texts and Buddhist practice. Harrison sees a connection between H&imacr;nay&amacr;na practices of <i>buddh&amacr;nusmr&dotbelow;ti </i> and a host of Mah&amacr;y&amacr;na and Vajray&amacr;na practices. He notes that <i>buddh&amacr;nusmr&dotbelow;ti</i> can be seen as a source of later, more elaborate Vajray&amacr;na visualization practices ("Commemoration" 215). Gyatso investigates contextual meanings of the term <i> anusmr&dotbelow;ti</i> and cites meanings that include an element of commemoration and devotion. She notes that varieties of <i>anusmr&dotbelow;ti </i> are considered beneficial for soteriological development and are deliberately cultivated for that purpose (<i>Mirror of Memory</i> 2-3). Matthew Kapstein refers to a type of anusmr&dotbelow;ti that is the palpable recovery of a state of being or affect. This, he says, is not simply the memory of the experience but the recovery of the sense of <i>being </i> in that state ("Amnesic Monarch" 234). Essential to the research were the teachings of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche and Anam Thubten Rinpoche on Buddha-nature and Pure Vision. </p><p> In this study I have coined the terms "Buddha-nature anusmr&dotbelow;ti" and "Pure vision <i>anusmr&dotbelow;ti.</i>" Though these terms do not appear in the literature, they may be seen as useful in investigating core remembrances (<i>anusmr&dotbelow;ti</i>) in the Mah&amacr;y&amacr;na and Vajray&amacr;na traditions respectively. "Buddha-nature <i>anusmr&dotbelow;ti </i>" refers to a key remembrance or commemoration in Mah&amacr;y&amacr;na Tibetan literature and practice. "Pure Vision <i>anusmr&dotbelow;ti </i>" refers to a key remembrance or commemoration in Vajray&amacr;na Tibetan literature and practice. This dissertation cites passages from key texts and commentaries to make the point that these coined terms meaningfully reflect a major aspect of their respective traditions. They describe that which is worthy and important, that which should be remembered and commemorated. </p>

The guarded mind-set with which this study was initially constructed , was influenced by the notion that all that could have been said on the subject of vicarious redemption within the Judeo-Christian belief system, has been produced through scholarly research on the theories, doctrinal positions, and systems of belief, around the constructs of redemption and vicarious redemption within the Judeo-Christian worldview. However this study is premised on the view that there is a noticeable gap in the body of scholarship around the critique of the Christian belief system, and in particular, one of its doctrinal pillars, that of vicarious redemption. This thesis argues that this gap is being confronted by the resurgence of new challenges to the proposition of redemption, as raised from within the New Atheist movement, in which the late British-American author and public figure, Christopher Hitchens became the central and leading figure. A theological critique of the construct and doctrine of vicarious redemption, as undertaken by Christopher Hitchens, forms the core academic focus of this study; which is conducted within a post-structural theoretical framework. The study, whilst examining the archaeology and architecture of the idea of vicarious redemption within the theological superstructure of Christendom and its founding doctrinal formations and theories, does represents an intentional step outside of the conventional trajectory of theological scholarship and analysis. In this latter regard, and alongside conventional literary resources on the subject, this study, has been inspired and informed by the convergence of, online New Media as a rich set of resource platforms for new research on this important subject. Given these new opportunities for research, alongside conventional research methods, this study captures the outright rejection, by Christopher Hitchens, of the doctrine of vicarious redemption; in what could be argued to represent a Kairos moment in biblical interpretation and criticism on the idea of redemption; a crucial and opportune moment in scholarly theological reflection, to which the special insights, hermeneutics and life and work of Christopher Hitchens has made an indelible contribution. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2013.